Game Controllers

Nintendo has an odd thing with touch screens on its gaming consoles. A few of them have one but not all of them take full advantage of the technology. The Nintendo 3DS utilized its screen and stylus to moderate success but the Nintendo Switch, which is practically a custom Android tablet, doesn't yet. It seems, however, that Nintendo has something in mind that could change that, not by making and selling a special kind of stylus but turning one of the Joy-Cons into a rather big pointing tool.

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The Nintendo Switch may have become the darling of the console gaming market but, more than a year ago, Microsoft did something that ranked it higher in the eyes of many gamers. Its Xbox Adaptive Controller or XAC practically opened the opening floodgates for people with disabilities by making it possible to create controller mods that catered to that underserved market. Now a dad has hastily put the two together to create an arcade-like controller that empowered his kids to play Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch.

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Unlike towering desktops, gaming consoles are often less conducive to the crazy mods that PC gamers often put their rig through. That only means that mods for consoles and controllers tend to be even crazier, just like this one that recreates an iconic GameCube controller as a Switch Joy-Con. Forget a simple paint job or even 3D printing, this mod is months' work that also represents the collaborative nature of the modding community.

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If you play games on Xbox One, you're likely familiar with the actions you can take with a nice pair of back buttons. If you're rolling with PlayStation 4, you might never have used back buttons at all. With the official DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment (from Sony, officially), there's a pair of back buttons you can attach to your DualShock 4 right now. Or, if you're looking to the future, you might want to take a peek at some design drawings made by Sony for a whole new controller.

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Things seem to finally be going smoothly for Google Stadia. All Founders already have their promised perks and Premiere Edition and Buddy Passes have been distributed. The Web storefront has opened and Google has just rolled out an update that makes any Chromecast Ultra a Stadia Chromecast Ultra. Despite that, at least one piece still has to fall in place, and that's THE CLAW power support for the Stadia Controller. Google has yet to put a date on its shipment but it seems that its manufacturer isn't waiting any longer and is already making it available ahead of Google.

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If you play competitive games on PlayStation 4, then Sony has a new attachment for the DualShock 4 that's aimed squarely at you. The somewhat bulky attachment you see in the picture above is officially named the DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment, and while that's a rather uninspired name, it does offer functionality that may make it worth picking up.

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The PlayStation 5 is coming really soon and yet there's still some uncertainty as to what it would look like. The "V" shaped console that was revealed in a patent and a subsequent photo may be interesting but there's also a slim chance that this PS5 was only meant to be seen and used by developers. It isn't just the console itself that is shrouded in mystery but the DUALSHOCK5 controllers as well. While rumors claim that the PS5 controller won't differ that much from its predecessor, at least two patents from Sony show how the company had ideas that could make the input device a lot more interesting.

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Google just loves its staggered releases, delivering features piecemeal and in waves. That's something traditional gamers might not be used to but it at least shows signs of activity for a gaming platform that started off on the wrong foot. The latest feature to drop is not exactly for Stadia itself but for its special Stadia Controller, finally enabling the Google Assistant button to summon Google Assistant, presuming you're not actually doing anything yet.

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If you haven't heard the news yet, Valve has been clearing out its inventory of Steam Controllers by selling at its cheapest possible price (excluding shipping and taxes). But if you were still planning on getting one, perhaps for posterity's sake, you can forget getting it at that low price. Valve has run out of stocks of the controller that wasn't meant to be and since it won't be making any new ones, it is giving buyers their $5 back, hopefully, to put towards buying a proper game controller.

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Valve is perhaps best known for the Steam PC games store and Half-Life. Some may even know it for Team Fortress, the Source engine, and the first Portal game. What the company isn't really known for is its hardware, like the Steam Machines and the physical Steam Link. Now yet another such product is about to bite the dust as the eccentric Steam Controller's price drops as Valve clears out its stock.

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It's been a long time coming, but 8bitdo's teeny tiny Zero 2 controller is now up for pre-order. We were first introduced to this controller in June of 2018, and in the year-and-a-half since then, the 8bitdo faithful have been waiting for their chance to buy one. They should have that chance soon enough, as the Amazon listing for this controller says it'll be here before the end of the year.

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When smartphones started to sport metal unibody designs or, more recently, glass-metal-glass sandwiches, they also become more difficult to open up for repairs. Even authorized service centers would need specialized tools and training which were, naturally, unavailable to third-parties or DIYers. It seems that Google is using that same design philosophy on its Stadia controller, making it almost impossible to open up, at least for untrained hands, all for the sake of having a nearly seamless and blemish-free appearance.

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